Tree Seekers
by SilverTree
Summary: Luke and Lorelai alone in the woods COMPLETE First-ever GG fic, please read & review! Please note rating change, it got a little more mature than I originally intended!
1. So, you have to fix the battery?

"Oh no.... no.... oh, come ON!"  Luke muttered in disbelief, cranking the key in the ignition as the engine chugged and coughed, refusing to start.  He let go of the key and put his forehead against the cold steering wheel.

Lorelai's eyes grew wide.  "What's happening?  Why isn't it going? Try again!"  Luke shot her a look. She got his message, loud and clear.  Trying to help, she changed her tone and spoke encouragingly to the truck, "Okay, so you want a little rest before you start, is that it?  Not a problem."  She stroked the dashboard soothingly with her gloved hand, "You can do it, I know it's really cold, but you're a good truck.  A strong truck!  I know you can start if you really try!"

Luke took a deep breath and rolled his eyes.  Yeah, she's helping for sure now, he thought, but he didn't interrupt.  He just gave the truck a little gas and tried again to start the engine.  Lorelai started cheerleading to drown out the sound of the gradually-getting-weaker chugging, "Go, truck!  Go go go!  Truck, truck, he's our truck if he can't do it, boy... we're fu-"

"LORELAI!" He couldn't take it anymore. "You're not helping."  It was obvious that the battery was too low to start the engine, and all the encouragement in the world - no matter how gorgeous the cheerleader - was going to change that fact.  They were stuck.

They looked at each other.  Lorelai opened her mouth to ask if he was going to try again, but the look on his face told her what she needed to know.  Get comfy, folks, the truck is not going anywhere.  With this realization crystalizing in the frigid air between them, they both let their eyes wander, dismayed, to watch the snowfall that was steadily blanketing the windshield.  This was not funny.

Luke peered into the thick squall, wondering if the temperature was still falling.  When they'd been driving up here, Lorelai had tuned the radio to a local station (so that she could sing along to the Christmas carols at the top of her lungs).  Somewhere between "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Feed the World", he'd managed to hear something about a major snowstorm that was moving into the area.  At the time, he hadn't given it much thought - they would get a tree and be back in Stars Hollow long before the storm hit.  I mean, how long could it take to pick out a stupid Christmas tree?  In retrospect, he smirked and shook his head.  He should've realized that, with Lorelai, things hardly ever went as planned.

"Um, earth to Luke?"  Lorelai gave his shoulder a playful little shove,  "I hate to break up this romantic little snow-watching expedition, but I'm freezing to death over here!  What's the plan?"

Typical.  She expected him to have a ready solution for every problem tucked up his plaid flannel sleeve.  It hadn't even dawned on her that maybe, on this one special occasion, he didn't have a way out.  The temperature outside was already well below zero, and the inside of the truck wasn't much warmer.  The cold was starting to prick at his feet inside his wool socks and workboots, and he was already starting to rub his hands together to keep them from going numb.  What were they going to do?  Good question, he thought.  Very good question indeed.  She looked at him calmly, expectantly, her confidence in his ability to handle this problem was resting comfortably in every facial feature.  "Uh..."  he hesitated, considering their options carefully.  "Well, I think... uh, probably the truck is not gonna start.  I mean, unless you've got an extra battery hidden under your coat, I think we can rule out driving home at this point."

She smiled at his joke, but still didn't *get* what he was saying.  "So, you're gonna have to fix the battery?"  Cars were not her strong suit.

"No... the battery is dead.  You can't fix it when it's dead, unless you've got a set of jumper cables and another car to hook it up to."  he deadpanned.

"So, we should find another car?  That is NOT gonna be easy out here - I don't think we've even seen another car... or house, for that matter, since we pulled off Route 9 a few miles back!  How about Plan B?"

Without a word, Luke opened the door and stepped out of the truck in the steadily-growing snowstorm.  He slammed the door behind him, but not in time to stop a whirling cloud of snow from blowing into the cab and settling on everything inside, including Lorelai.  She frowned at the cold blast of air, but also at Luke's sudden unannounced departure.  What was he doing?, she thought.  Should I pull the whatchamacallit so that that hood pops up?  She started scrutinizing the various knobs and handles offered by the dashboard of the truck, trying to guess which one might open the hood.

Before she had a chance to start experimenting,  the driver's side door was wrenched open again and Luke re-entered the cab in a flurry of white flakes.  He was carrying something that looked like a small suitcase, and he had a large snow-covered quilt bunched under one arm.

"What's all this?" she quizzed, reaching for the case while Luke pulled his gloves off.

"It's a winter survival kit, what's it look like?" he grumbled, rubbing his frozen hands together.  "Look in that box for some candles and matches, would you?"

Lorelai was already into the case, but couldn't help but find humour in his suggestion.  "What are we trying to do, set the mood?  Seriously, Luke, do you have extra batteries in this thing or what?" She rummaged through the box.

He frowned.  "Okay, for starters, this is a Chevy, not a flashlight.  It doesn't run on double-A's!"  She stopped her search.  "The kit has stuff in it that we can use to try to stay warm, and there's flares in there if we see another car and need to signal for help."  Lorelai just looked at him, blinking slowly.

"You're not kidding." she said.  She turned to look at the snow-covered windshield as if it was listening to their conversation, her eyebrows so high on her forehead that they threatened to disappear into her hairline.  "He's not kidding!  He actually thinks that we're going to sit out here in this truck and freeze to death!  By candlelight!!"  She turned back to Luke.  "Say that you're kidding, please, I'll do anything.  You can fix the truck, you've gotta be the handiest person I know!  Shouldn't we at least try?"  Her eyes pleaded with his.

"No."  he said flatly, taking the survival kit out of her lap and surveying its contents.  "There is nothing to fix, that's what I was trying to explain to you before."  There was no way that he could look at her while he said this.  "We're stuck.  I can't fix it, and we're just going to have to find another way out of this."  He tried to prepare himself for her reaction when the truth finally sank in.   He didn't look up, but he steeled himself for the shouting and raging that he was sure were about to come his way.  One... two... three... here we go... he thought.

Instead, she just breathed for a minute.  Bright white clouds of condensation billowed into the frosty air between them.  Luke looked up, still waiting for the tirade.  Instead, he saw immediately that she was scared.  Her eyes were huge in her face, and her skin seemed paler than it had a moment ago.  This was much worse than yelling - he was actually afraid that she was going to cry, and there was nothing on earth that he could think of that would make this situation worse than if she started to cry.  Quickly, he put on his game face.  He let a small smile play at the corners of his mouth, and he told her what he knew she needed to hear.  "Hey, it's gonna be okay, though.  We've got.. uh, pretty well everything we need right here in this box!"  

He reached in and pulled out a Hershey bar, which he tossed playfully into her lap.  She smiled, "Hey!  You didn't tell me we were going to have *candy*!  This was almost worth getting caught in a snowstorm!"  She started unwrapping the chocolate immediately, while he continued his search for candles and matches.

While Lorelai went to work on the candy bar, Luke fished a box of six sturdy white candles out of the survival kit, along with a small box of waterproof wooden matches.  A little more excavation revealed a set of two utilitarian wire candleholders.  Before Lorelai was half done the chocolate bar, there were two candles glowing on the dashboard.

"Mmmmf" she mumbled appreciatively, nodding at the candles as she swallowed her mouthful of candy.  "They're so pretty!"

"Actually, candles can generate a fair bit of heat in a small space like this." Luke explained, hoping to God that what he was saying was true.  He glanced at the open box in his hand.  And I've just used one-third of our entire supply, he thought to himself.  Damn.

She offered him chocolate, which he surprised her by accepting.  "You never eat junk food!"  she gasped, "This must really be an emergency!  In fifteen years, I don't think I've ever seen you eat anything unhealthy!"  He answered by stealing another piece of chocolate from the wrapper in her hand and popping it into his mouth with a flourish.

"First time for everything, isn't there?" he quipped, and licked his lips.  In spite of her warm smile, he could see that she was starting to tremble in the cold.  He reached for the quilt beside him, and started shaking the snow off of it as best he could in the confines of the driver's seat.  "I had this in the back, I was gonna use it to keep the tree from scratching the roof, but I think it might be more useful in here."  He tried to pick a few pine needles off the quilt, "Uh, it's not really all that clean, but.."   Lorelai didn't seem to find anything wrong with the quilt at all as she eagerly scooted across the seat toward him.  He did his best to tuck the blanket closely around her shoulders and under her knees, but she started to object.

"Hey, Captain Lumberjack-guy!  I know you're tough and rugged and probably completely impervious to the forces of nature in general, but if you think I'm gonna take this entire quilt while you freeze your family jewels off right in front of me, you really are suffering from some kind of hypothermia-induced delusion!"  He smiled his relief.  Not only was he glad to share the blanket, but he was glad to hear that she wasn't too cold to carry on her usual banter.  He untucked the side of the quilt closest to him, and Lorelai cozied up beside him on the bench seat.  With gloved hands, he clumsily arranged the quilt across both of them, and did his best to tuck it under his thigh and behind his back.  "Much better" she said as soon as they were settled, "I don't suppose that you've got a space heater jammed in that box somewhere?"

"Unfortunately, no."  he chuckled.  "I must've left it at home with the portable hot tub"

"WHAT?  Oh, NOW you tell me!" she giggled, "From now on, get it straight.  I do not go on ANY trips with you unless you pack the portable hot tub!"

"Trips with ME?"  he challenged.  "It was YOU who dragged us out here, a hundred miles from civilization, so that you could get a stupid Christmas tree for your beloved inn, remember?"

"Well, what was I supposed to do?  Chop down an eighteen-foot pine tree alone, and load it into your truck all by MYSELF?"

"Noooooo.  I was thinking maybe you could just BUY a tree at the damn tree lot in front of Doose's like everyone else in town!"  In spite of the lighthearted jokes that started it, this exchange was starting to heat up.

She turned on him.  "Are you saying I'm cheap?  I am NOT cheap, pal.  You have no idea how much money it takes to start an inn!  The permits, the construction, the renovations... and Sookie's kitchen was no bargain, let me tell you... and you have the nerve to sit there and blame ME for us being stuck out here?  All I wanted to do was drive up to get a FREE Christmas tree, and YOU drive us out here in your broken-down old truck that is obviously not even road-worthy..."

"Not road-worthy??  There is NOTHING wrong with this truck, Lorelai, and you know it!  The only reason that the battery went dead is because YOU had to keep the headlights on the whole time you were picking out which tree you wanted AND the whole time that *I* was chopping down said tree AND the whole time you were sitting in the cab of the truck while *I* loaded it into the back of the truck and tied it down..."

They were talking over each other now, bickering at full throttle in way that they seldom had in the past.  The snow was falling faster and thicker all the time, and the candles on the dashboard were already starting to burn lower.  On the surface, they couldn't seem to find anything to agree on, but deep down they were both thinking the same thing.  This isn't going to work, and we're in real trouble.

The argument died down almost as quickly as it had flared up.  Their eyes met, and somehow the tension just drained out of the equation.  Lorelai smiled her apology, and Luke's expression softened in response.  This wasn't helping, and they both knew it.  Without a word, Luke took Lorelai's hands between his own, and began rubbing them to try to keep her warm.  They looked at the candles glowing on the dash, both silently willing the stubby white cylinders to raise the ambient temperature by just a *few* more degrees.  Lorelai couldn't stop herself from shivering, and Luke began to realize that he could no longer feel it when he wiggled his toes inside his boots.

Just then, an image flashed into his head from a trip he'd taken up here with Nicole back in early October.  She had wanted to do the typical New England tourist thing and drive out into the countryside to admire the fall foliage.  Luke had finally agreed, even though he couldn't understand why the trees out in the middle of nowhere were any more attractive than the ones in Stars Hollow, and they'd packed a picnic lunch for the occasion.  Unless he was mistaken, and he knew this area pretty darn well, they'd spotted a small hunting cabin just off the main road a little further up.  He racked his brain to remember exactly where it had been.  Was it still in one piece?  Did it have a door?  A chimney?  There was no point in leaving the cab of the truck for a fallen-down ruin with three walls and no fireplace.  Dammit, think Danes, he told himself.  Lorelai's shivering was getting worse.  Although she was trying to hide it, her teeth were beginning to chatter uncontrollably.  He didn't think either one of them could last much longer like this.

Luke concentrated on his mental image of the tiny hunting cabin.  Yes, it had a door that could hopefully be fastened shut against the wind.  A chimney?  He couldn't be sure, but he thought that he'd seen a stone chimney running up the side of the cabin.  He breathed a quick silent prayer that the chimney was intact, and that some resourceful family of raccoons hadn't decided to take up residence inside the flue.  On the dashboard, one of the candles flickered at the very bottom of the wire holder.  It sputtered twice, and soundlessly went out.  There was less than an inch left of the other candle, and as far as Luke could tell, the inside of the truck wasn't getting any warmer.  With Lorelai shivering at his side, he made his decision.  There was no other choice.  

He briefly and urgently described his plan to Lorelai, and she nodded her agreement.  She didn't know if the cabin would be any better than the truck, but it couldn't be that much worse, and she trusted Luke to make the right decision.  If he had said they should trudge into the woods and find a cave full of bears to shelter with, she would agree because she knew that he would never put her in harm's way.  Yesterday, she would've told anyone who asked that she would trust Luke with her life.  Today, she didn't hesitate to prove it.  Luke quickly gathered their remaining survival kit components, latched the box closed, and wrapped Lorelai securely in the quilt.  The two shared a look, and used the opportunity to offer each other wordless encouragement.  

"Stay with me" Luke said gruffly, "The last thing I need is for you to get lost out there".   

He opened the door into the driving snow, and anything that Lorelai said in response was lost to the biting cold wind that whipped around them as they faced the storm head-on.  Her gloved hand slipped through his arm, and he held her close at his side as they stumbled away from their meagre shelter.  This was the right decision, he told himself.  He would find the cabin, he would light a fire, and they would wait out the storm.  Everything was going to be fine.  It had to be.  She gripped his arm and followed him into the swirling whiteness.  She believed in him, and he would never forgive himself if he ever let her down.


	2. Dashing through the snow

Author's Note:  Whoopsie, I must've forgotten to put in that oh-so-important little disclaimer in my first chapter, so here it is, better late than never : Um, I don't own these characters, they're not mine.  Not even the truck.  I'm not making a penny off of this, it's all just for fun.  So, in short, please don't sue me!

Thanks so much for all the positive feedback, it means a lot to me as this is my very first GG fanfic!  I appreciate hearing what everyone thinks, so please take a mo' to send a quick review, even if you hate it!   And I'm surprised that nobody questioned the conspicuous absence of Lorelai's cell phone in this fic… to be honest, I didn't think of it myself until recently blush.  If you guys will agree to pretend that Lorelai's cell phone fell (temporarily) into a small crack in the space-time continuum, I swear I'll be more careful with the details in my next fic!

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Lorelai did a quick reality check, but it didn't make the situation seem any less like a bad dream.  With her chin hunched down to her chest against the bitter wind, the only things she could see were a) swirling whiteness; and b) her own snow-encrusted legs taking endless steps through the swirling whiteness.  Step after step after step.  She could see that her feet were touching the ground, she knew that she must be coming in contact with the planet's surface, but she had long ago given up on the idea of feeling her footsteps.  Why didn't anyone make boots that were stylish and warm?  Did they really expect anyone to dress up like Nanook of the North instead of buying a nice snakeskin print with a flattering heel? Insanity.  She was holding the editors of Vogue (en masse) personally responsible for her current lack of sensation below the ankles.

To take her mind off of her frozen extremities, she tried hard to think about things that she would rather **not** be doing right now. Like, uh, having a root canal.  She'd never had one, but imagined must be about a hundred times worse than the regular cleanings that she despised.  Oh, and what about getting stitches, like the time she sliced her finger on that can of Spaghetti-O's (and gave up cooking forever)?  Or push-ups.  Man, did she hate push-ups!  She remembered her sadistic ninth-grade gym teacher, Miss Spitz, who'd made her do push-ups every single time she'd lipped off in class… and that had been a lot.  Weird, she thought, that it never occurred to me to just **stop** being so mouthy.  Hmmmmmm.  Lorelai hated push-ups more than just about anything else on earth – her arms ached just thinking about them.

Actually, her arms ached because she was gripping Luke's quilt so tightly around her shoulders that she thought she might rip it to pieces. His right arm was wrapped heavily around her, holding her securely against him.  She leaned into his half-embrace and made a quick mental note to be nicer to him from now on.  He was bound to blame this on her – like it was **her** idea to get stuck in a huge snowstorm!  Her feet and hands felt like they were made of wood, and the she assumed that the fact that her cheeks had stopped stinging and burning was probably a bad sign.  How much farther was it to this stupid cabin, anyway? All she'd wanted was to shave a few bucks off the Christmas décor budget for the inn, and look how things had turned out! It seemed like she was always doing the wrong thing where Luke was concerned, or more often, saying the wrong thing.  She tucked herself more closely against his side, and couldn't help but notice what a perfect fit they were.  How is it that she never noticed this before?  In spite of the bone-chilling temperatures, Lorelai felt the tiniest bit of warmth leap undeniably into existence, deep inside, where the wind couldn't reach.

Luke squinted hard into the blinding onslaught of flakes.  Shouldn't they be there by now?  He found himself wondering if it had really been this side road where he and Nicole had seen the hunting cabin, after all.  What if the cabin was on the other side of the county?  What if someone had torn it down since October?  His stomach rolled over at the thought of trying to stay alive in woods long enough to outlast the storm.  At least **one** of us had enough sense to dress for the weather, he thought, congratulating himself on his sturdy work boots, double-knit wool socks, thermal underwear, and parka.  He'd told Lorelai to dress warmly, but instead she'd shown up in one of those outfits that was supposedly 'winter-wear' but was actually designed by some jackass in Malibu who has never seen frost on anything except a martini glass.  Her hip-length leather coat was probably unlined, her boots were nothing but high-heeled shoes that came up past her ankles, and her scarf – well, the scarf was probably fairly warm even though he knew she'd only worn it because it was in style.  Dumb luck.  Likewise with her cashmere turtleneck – chosen for looks instead of warmth, but practical nonetheless.  He highly doubted that she had bothered to layer anything underneath her sleek low-waisted jeans, which meant that she was probably – quite literally – freezing her butt off out here.  

He sighed.  Whenever possible, he tried not to think about Lorelai's butt.  Or her legs… especially not her legs.  He forced himself to try to remember what the heck it was he'd been thinking about before his mind took this sudden detour to the Hefner mansion. Was it possible to blush in this kind of cold?, he wondered.  As if she could actually **hear** him thinking suggestive thoughts about her, Lorelai chose this particular moment in time to wriggle more firmly into the protection that his broad upper body provided.  Luke couldn't help but notice something that he'd suspected all along.  Their bodies fit perfectly together like this – each of them falling effortlessly into rhythm with the other, step after step.  His longer strides unconsciously shortened to match her (slightly) smaller ones.  Her head tilted at exactly the right angle to allow his arm to curve comfortably around her sheltering form.  So close he could feel her breathing, feel her… shivering.  Her whole body was shivering uncontrollably.  Damn it, Danes, he chastised himself, get back in the game, you idiot!  What the hell are you thinking?  The girl is courting frostbite while you run off on a side trip to Fantasy Land!  His brow furrowed with determination.  Find.  The.  Cabin.

Nothing, nothing, and more nothing.  Luke strained his eyes to find any hint of the hunting cabin in the snow-covered woods, but it seemed futile – the snowfall was so thick that he doubted he'd see a Ferris Wheel parked in the woods right now.  Just as he started to seriously consider turning back to the truck, Luke caught a glimpse of something through the trees to his left.  It was sheer luck that he spotted it at all – just a flash of slightly-different-shade-of-brown in a sea of tree trunks and snow, but there it was!  He could barely make out the door and part of the window that were visible above the underbrush and snow – but there was no mistaking it.  He let out the breath he'd unconsciously been holding with something that sounded very much like a laugh, and he squeezed Lorelai to get her attention.

She felt the arm around her waist tighten, and it reminded her of being shaken awake from a long, warm nap.   She tried to pay attention to something that Luke was gesturing toward, but she knew she'd fall flat on her face if she stopped concentrating on walking upright for even a minute.  When did she get so tired?  It couldn't be all that late, it wasn't even dark yet. She shook her head to orient herself, trying to remember if she'd been drinking.  Only then did she realize that they weren't fighting the wind anymore.  Luke was leading them into the woods to the left of the snow-covered road.  A smirk played across her face.  Maybe they were going after that bear-filled cave after all, she thought.  If it was warm, it sounded pretty damn good right now…

This can't be good, Luke thought, as he half-dragged, half-carried Lorelai the last ten or twenty yards toward the cabin, through tangles of knee-high underbrush.  She seemed sort of… well, out of it.  He tried to get her attention, and he pointed through the trees at the little cabin, now fully visible without the driving flurries of snowflakes to block the view.  She didn't even look up.  She just gave her head a little shake, giggled, and asked him if he'd brought anything to feed the bears!  WHAT??? Excellent.  She's lost it.  All he needed now was for the stupid cabin to be locked, and the whole damn picture would be complete!  He kicked the snow away from the bottom of the door and grabbed the door handle in his left hand, giving it a firm tug.  With a loud groan, it swung easily toward them, and Luke didn't waste a second getting them inside.   The door groaned closed behind them with a bang, leaving them to survey their new shelter in the dim light afforded by the frosted window.  It wasn't much, but it would have to do, Luke thought.

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Hmmmm… all alone in a cabin in the woods…. what **will** they do to occupy their time?  Any suggestions?


	3. Little cabin in the woods

Author's Note:  First, the disclaimer, so the lawyers will be happy.  I don't own these characters, they're not mine.  Not even the truck.  I'm not making a penny off of this, it's all just for fun.  So, in short, please don't sue me!

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to review!  I finally found the little setting that allows unsigned reviews (who knew this was an option?), so thanks to the reviewer who pointed that out.  I hope you're enjoying the fic so far, and that you'll continue to read until it's done… uh, whenever that is!  Sorry for the slow updates, but I'm still pretty new to this and had a busy week with family.  Hope everyone had a great Holiday!  And now back to our favorite characters in their winter wonderland…

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It was oddly quiet inside the cabin, and Luke's feet scuffled loudly as he tried to set Lorelai down as gently as possible on the dusty wooden floorboards.  He didn't succeed, losing his balance at the last minute and dumping her unceremoniously in a heap beside the door.  She giggled and let her head fall back against the wall of the cabin with a thud.  "Ow!"  she exclaimed, somehow surprised that the wall she was leaning against would be too solid to be a good cushion for her head.  She reached up to touch the back of her head, but she was still shivering too much to be very coordinated.  All she wanted to do was go to sleep – she vaguely remembered having a dream about living with bears, and it seemed really fun.  She wanted to get back to that dream, where it was warm.

"Watch it" Luke quipped under his breath, "You knock that wall down and I'm making **you** carry **me** back to the truck."  He grimaced as he flexed the strained muscles of his right arm and shoulder, and made a mental note to feed her fewer pancakes from now on.  In the time it took him to think up a teasing comment about how she was heavier than she looked, Lorelai fell asleep.  He thought about rousing her, maybe it wasn't good for her to sleep when she had… hypothermia or whatever it was that making her act so wacky.  Instead, he removed his gloves and carefully brushed the snow from her hair and the collar of her coat.  He drew the loose ends of the quilt up around her - the parts of it that she wasn't sitting on, anyway.  She didn't seem to be shivering as violently as before, and he assumed that meant that she was feeling warmer.  Her dark curls tumbled over the threadbare quilt, and the cold and exertion had brought a slight flush to her cheeks that was undeniably beautiful.  He couldn't help himself.  He touched her face, briefly and tenderly, causing her dark lashes to flutter slightly.  She remained asleep, though, and his moment of weakness went completely unnoticed – just like every other hint he'd ever offered her about his true feelings toward her.  Mystery unsolved, case closed.  Luke sighed and reached for his gloves.  Maybe it wasn't as cold in the cabin as it had been in the truck, but it was far from warm.  If he didn't get down to business, and fast, they were going to freeze.

A quick glance around the one-room dwelling revealed a rickety table and chair in one corner, and several braided oval rugs strewn around the floor.  There was a small stone fireplace in the end wall to his right, with a wooden bench in front of it at an angle.  No firewood was piled at the grate, but a good-sized axe was leaning against the wall beside the hearth.  Built into the wall beside the fireplace, there was a single bunk with a lumpy-looking mattress and no bedding.  The wall opposite the fireplace held a coat rack, a gun rack, and a large metal trunk that was latched shut, but not locked.  Always the curious type, Luke decided to start with the trunk.

He was rewarded handsomely for his curiosity.  In addition to a thick layer of cobwebs and some mouse droppings, the trunk contained at least 20 cans of food!  Luke examined several cans and found that they weren't damaged or swollen – nothing to indicate that they were spoiled.  Some of the labels were missing, but others advertised stew, chili, canned pasta, and even fruit cocktail.  He was sure that Lorelai would be disappointed to find out that they weren't going to have to survive on chocolate bars, but Luke was relieved as hell.  There was no way they were getting out of here anytime soon, and starving seemed even worse than freezing on his list of crummy ways to buy the farm.

The trunk also offered up a half-gallon can of what smelled like lamp oil, but Luke didn't see a lamp.  The light was fading so fast, he was going to need it sooner rather than later.  Time to set some priorities, Danes.  In a room this small, the lamp couldn't be all that hard to find, but it still took him a few minutes in the dim light to locate it on a rough shelf near the table.  It already had a fair bit of oil in it, so he adjusted the wick and pulled the box of matches out of the coat pocket where he'd been keeping them since lighting the candles in the truck.  He'd never lit a lamp like this in his life, and he briefly considered whether or not the lamp would explode if he did this wrong.  Probably a very low chance of that, he thought, considering how few wild west pioneers you ever hear about who blew themselves to kingdom come with their hurricane lamps.  The wick caught easily and the lamp cast a warm and cheery glow around the entire room.  Luke replaced the lamp on the corner shelf and returned to the metal trunk.

Even with the additional lighting, he found nothing else of interest in the trunk.  The biggest priority right now was getting the fire started, and that was going to mean going outside to chop some wood.  He grabbed the axe from the hearth and hefted its weight.  At least he had the right tools for the job, he thought, steeling himself for cold he knew was waiting for him on the other side of the door.  He pulled the latch and stepped out into the frosty twilight.

Less than a minute later, the door reopened to admit a huge armload of split firewood carried by a man wearing a grin from ear to ear.  When he'd walked around the cabin to find a good place to fell a small tree, Luke had found a sizable woodpile already cut and stacked against the back of the cabin!  He staggered toward the fireplace to unload.

"Oooooo… there really **is** a Santa Claus!" came an excited voice from the corner of the room.  Luke was so startled that he almost jumped out of his thermal undergarments.

"Good God!" he cried, "I thought you were sleeping!"

"I was!  I just got up!" Lorelai cried defensively, "I didn't mean to scare you."

"You didn't" he said quickly.  "I mean, you just startled me, it's okay.  How are you feeling?"

"You don't want to know, believe me.  What does frostbite feel like?"

"Why?" Luke looked concerned. "Do you think you have frostbite?"

"Well, do you think that frostbite hurts really, really bad and makes you wish you had just stayed outside in a snowbank where your hands and feet would've stayed **numb**?"

Luke let out the breath he'd been holding and began stacking his armload of firewood beside the fireplace.  "No," he chuckled, "What you're describing sounds a lot more like chillblains.  Painful, but not serious.  If you said that you didn't feel a thing, I'd be worried."  He arranged several logs in the grate and looked around for something to help get the fire started.

Lorelai was perturbed.  She had just told him that she was in **extreme** pain, and he was laughing at her!  She pulled the chair roughly back from the table and threw herself down on it in frustration.  "Since you obviously don't have anything helpful to say about my pain and suffering, maybe you could take a minute to explain where the heck we are?  The last time I remember anything clearly, we were looking for a cave or something?  Fill in the blanks, here, Diner Man."

Geez, she was in a mood.  Luke had had chillblains before, many times, especially as a kid.  He knew they were kind of painful, but how was being all snarky with him going to make her feel any better?  But, he did manage to stop himself from smirking at her drama-queen tendencies, and quickly straightened out her story.  "Um, actually, we were looking for this cabin.  I don't remember anything about a cave, but if that's what you were looking for, maybe you'd like to head back out and see if you can find one?"  She shot him a look as frigid as the weather outside.  He grinned back.  "Nothing much to tell, really.  You got a little loopy out there, I guess it was from the cold or something, and I brought you in here and wrapped you up in the quilt.  It looks like you're able to stand up and speak in full sentences again, so I must've done something right."  Lorelai's glare softened a bit.  "No need to thank me", he finished in a grumble.

She felt a bit sheepish, griping at him when he'd been busy saving her life for the past few hours.  "I don't know what the cave thing was all about, I must've been dreaming.  Thanks for finding this place.  It's…" she glanced around with distain, "… uh, really great".  She forced a smile, in spite of her throbbing extremities.

"Don't mention it", Luke replied gruffly, looking away.  He was still looking for some paper to light underneath the logs to get the fire going.  Lorelai pulled a fistful of something out of her coat pocket and offered it to him – it was paper!  Receipts from Doose's, from his diner, and from gas stations, as well as ticket stubs from various movies, several post-it notes, and a few gum wrappers.  "This is perfect!" he crowed, "Thanks!"   With the paper crumpled into a tight wad and ignited under the logs, the fire caught slowly and began to crackle as the ice and snow on the logs melted and was evaporated in the growing flames.  

"Now we just have to keep adding logs to make sure that it doesn't go out" he stated, and stood back to admire his creation. 

Lorelai was suitably impressed.  She quickly joined him in front of the hearth, and dropped her gloves beside his on the low bench so that she could warm her bare hands in the glow.  "Wow."  she said appreciatively, "Momma always said I should marry a Boy Scout".

"I thought your mother wanted you to marry Christopher" Luke challenged.

"Yeah, well, I think that had a lot more to do with his 'Birds and Bees' badge than his 'Campfire' badge, if you get my drift."  She was trying to be funny, but the familiar bitter tone crept into her voice that was always there when she spoke about her relationship with Rory's father.  

Luke quickly changed the subject.  "We've got a fire going, and I found that lamp up there" he indicated the shelf above the table, "so at least we're not going to be sitting here in the dark. What's next?"

"What, there's more than this?"  Lorelai was still rubbing her hands together very gingerly.  

He pulled the bench up behind her and gestured for her to sit down.  He sat beside her and bent to work on untying the frozen laces of his workboots.  He stretched his stocking feet out toward the hearth, wincing at the twinges of pain he felt as the blood returned to his chilled toes.  Lorelai was still fumbling with the side zippers on her high-heeled boots.  It was obvious that she wasn't able to use her fingers very well yet.  Without a word, Luke knelt down to help.  He drew her feet slowly out of her boots, mentally shaking his finger at her for her choice of footwear and her thin cotton socks.  He could tell that her feet were much worse than he'd realized, and that her initial questions about frostbite might not have been all that far from the mark.  He bit the inside of his cheek in consternation, what the heck did people do about frostbite anyway?  The only thing he could think of was to warm her up, but he knew that she wasn't going to like it.  If it really was frostbite – even a mild case - thawing her out was going to hurt like hell, and her feet were going to swell up like balloons for at least a day or two.  She wouldn't be able to get her boots back on until the swelling went down.  He looked up and met her eyes, and he could see that she was already starting to feel the beginnings of itching, burning pain.  The vague prickling that she'd felt up until now was going to seem pleasant by comparison.  His concern showed in his eyes, and Lorelai knew she should be nervous.  If Luke was concerned, there was definitely something to worry about, she thought.  And she was right.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A/N: Ok, that was Ch 3.  Is Lorelai okay?  Will they really be stuck in the cabin for days?  Who EVER is going to sleep in that tiny little bed???  hehe


	4. Frostbite and Chef Boyardee

Lorelai's frostbite was mild, as far as Luke could tell, but he didn't envy her the pain she had to endure as her lifeless feet slowly returned to body temperature.   At first, she had been surprisingly stoic.  Not just stoic-compared-to-her-usual-hysterics, but she was really trying to hide her pain. They sat side by side on the bench and she told him stories about her childhood, growing up in the Gilmore mansion.  As the pain intensified, she talked faster and faster. She started to run out of material about her own childhood and moved on to talking about Rory.  Like any mother, Lorelai could usually talk for hours about her child, so he knew that she must be having trouble holding it together when she started to falter on some of the details.

"So, where was I? Oh yeah, it was the summer that she was seven… um, no six.  Yeah, six.  And she decided she wanted to be a famous artist after she read a book about Van Gogh.  Or, uh… no, it was one of those other guys…"  She was rocking back and forth by this point, rubbing her feet back and forth on the floor in front of her as she talked so fast that anyone besides Luke probably wouldn't have understood a word, "…um, but I can't remember the name… it was a famous artist-guy, anyway, and she painted the most god-awful whaddayacallit… uh, mural on the side of the garden shed that was supposed to look like haystacks or water lilies or something… and oh, ow.  Ow, ow, damn, Luke, ow… this really, really hurts…"

"Okay, it's okay", he murmured, and sat on the floor in front of her.  He took both of her feet gently in his hands, rubbing them slowly between his palms, "This is going to be over before you know it, and you can tell everyone how brave you were."   Lorelai whimpered.  The only thing that he could do was distract her, so he started telling stories of his own.  The problem was that he really couldn't think of anything all that entertaining to tell Lorelai about his childhood.  His dad had encouraged him to play a lot of sports when he was young, and the only stories he could think of were sports-related.  Luke doubted that she would be very interested in hearing about his baseball or football heroics, and he couldn't think of anything else.  Before he realized what he was saying, he was telling his own stories about Rory's childhood – the daily glimpses that he'd had of it in the diner, anyway.  The time that Doose had caught him playing Barbies with Rory at the counter and teased him for two months about his choice of evening wear, and the long debate that he and Rory had had when she was in the fifth grade and decided to **personally** save the dolphins by persuading Luke to stop serving tuna… 

An hour later, and the worst was over.  At some point, Lorelai had joined him on the rag rug in front of the fire, leaning back against the wooden bench with her feet in his lap.  He'd removed her damp socks during the Barbie story, and laid them in front of the hearth to dry.  During the dolphin/tuna story, he'd noticed that the skin was rough and broken along the outside edge of her left foot – he avoided massaging that area.  Eventually, he realized that her feet were the same temperature (actually, much warmer) than the rest of her, so he'd laid them gently in his lap.  Her eyes never left his face.  He knew she was still in pain, but she stopped complaining.  If he had known that talking about Rory would hold her attention (and keep her quiet) like this, he would've started doing it years ago. The kid was gem, he honestly hadn't realized until she went away to college, how much he'd come to rely on seeing her every day.  "I'm probably never going to have any kids of my own, but…" he looked at her sheepishly, "Well, you know what I mean."  

Lorelai smiled.  She did know.

That smile did things to Luke Danes.  It always had, and he fought instinctively to avoid the way it made him feel.  To Lorelai's dismay, he chose this moment to recover his usual gruff manner – he took only a second to set her feet gingerly on the rag rug before mumbling something curt about the firewood not dancing into the cabin all by itself. He was on his feet and out the door before she could make any reply, letting it close behind him with a punctuating bang.  

If it had been anyone but Luke, Lorelai would've wondered what the hell was up.  But, after decades of his moodiness, she was pretty sure what the problem was.  'He thinks about kids, and thinks about he's never going to have any, and that makes him think about Rachel… and Nicole, and so he feels…' she paused for a moment. 'Oh, who the hell knows what that man feels!'  She grimaced as she reached for her socks and checked to see if they were dry.  Every time she'd ever gotten remotely close to finding out what was going on inside of Luke, he ran away.  

She was still struggling to stretch her sock wide enough to fit over her swollen foot when Luke banged his way back into the cabin.  He deposited his armload of firewood onto the floor beside the fireplace without saying a word and immediately left again.  Lorelai raised her eyebrows, and stifled her urge to make jokes of the I'm-a-lumberjack-and-I'm-okay variety.  There was no way that these tiny socks were going to fit on her gigantic balloon feet!  Even Sookie's feet had never swelled to this size.  She frowned.  This was going to go away, right?

When Luke reentered the cabin with another load of wood, the strong wind held the door open behind him.  With his arms full, he couldn't do anything about the door until he could put down the firewood.  Lorelai jumped up to get the door, and immediately regretted it.  Her swollen red feet turned out to be a little too tender to walk on just yet, and she collapsed in a very ungraceful heap on the floor.  Luke sprang to the door, latching it shut, and knelt beside Lorelai.  "What are you doing?  Are you nuts?!"

Lorelai had had enough of this.  First he runs off to the woodpile at the first sign of bonding, and then he yells at her for being unable to walk!  "Yes, Luke!" she spat at him, "I'm nuts.  For trying to shut the **door** in a blizzard, I must be certifiably insane!  I am deliberately trying to keep the stupid cabin warm, so lock me up!!  The excruciating **pain** is just an added bonus at a time like this!!"

Luke just looked at her for moment. "Uh, right.  I just meant that you need to stay off your feet for awhile."  She was looking at the floor.  "Til the swelling goes down.  I didn't mean to yell."  He cleared his throat and waited for her to say something.  She didn't.  Instead, a tear slipped down her cheek, followed by another.  Oh, no.  No!  Damn.  

"Hey, uh…", he swallowed, "Don't.. uh… don't do that."  She didn't look up.  Another tear.  "Come on, Lorelai.  You're tougher than this."  Eye contact, but not good eye contact – she was glaring at him.  Alright, bad choice.  Be supportive here.  "I mean, you're strong.  This is nothing you can't handle."   He scooped her up in both arms, a little awkwardly, but he wasn't going to leave her there on the floor.  She didn't protest, she just dropped her head down onto his shoulder.  He brought her over to the bunk on the wall, and set her down on the mattress.  He sat beside her, facing her.

She looked at him with big, teary eyes.  He knew that she was embarrassed about falling, and probably feeling pretty unsure of this whole situation.  He wasn't usually much of a talker, but that didn't mean that he didn't know what to say to her. 

"Hey, this is going to be fine.  Your feet are going to be back to their usual gargantuan size by this time tomorrow, and just think of the swollen-feet stories that you can swap with Sookie!"  It was working, she had stopped crying.  He shrugged off his flannel shirt, which was warm from wearing, leaving him in his white thermal long-sleeved undershirt.  He wrapped the flannel gently around both of her feet as he talked.  "In fact, I guarantee it!  If your boots don't fit you by tomorrow night, I promise that I'll trade with you and you can wear mine for the hike back to the truck!"  She smiled and wiped her cheeks.  "Besides, now you can finally write that entry in your diary about me sweeping you into my arms and carrying you off to bed!" 

It was a moment when they both should have laughed, but instead they smiled.  Luke couldn't help but notice that it wasn't a smile that said 'Gosh, you're amusing'.  It was a twinkling kind of smile that seemed to be telling him secrets that he wasn't sure he wanted to hear.  He laughed awkwardly and got up to pile firewood in the grate.  The glow of the coals was hot enough to convince him that they were the reason his face felt like it was burning.  Lorelai continued to smile to herself.  This was weird, but it was good-weird.  It felt nice, even though it felt strange.

"So, I don't suppose you found any good take-out places when you were at the woodpile?"  she quipped.  He must be as hungry as she was.  

"Oh yeah, what do you feel like having?"  he played along, turning to the trunk full of canned food.  "There's Chinese, Italian, Mexican… what are you up for?"

"Oh, you know me.  Just give me all of what you have most, and a side dish of everything else!"  He smirked.  She really was feeling better.  He grabbed several cans at random and headed over to the table.  His survival kit had a multi-tool can opener gadget in it, and he perused the contents of the cans that would be their dinner.

"Our Mexican specialty of the house, Spanish rice! "  He set the can down in the glowing embers of the fire.  "For our second course, our chef has prepared his world famous spaghetti and meatballs!"  Another can set into the coals.  "And for dessert, madame will be delighted to try our Far Eastern delight… mandarin orange slices in delicate syrup!"   Lorelai applauded wildly from the bunk beside the fireplace.

"Bravo!  I always said that I couldn't understand why anyone would watch a show about cooking, but I think I can see the appeal in it now!"   He didn't look half bad in that snug-fitting cotton undershirt, even though she couldn't believe she was noticing.  "You should get a show of your own, Luke.  You would be great at that kind of thing!  Like a… a male Martha Stewart!"  she crowed, knowing it would irritate him.

But he was on a roll, and he wasn't going to be distracted from the fun he was having.  "Hmm.  I thought Martha Stewart **was** male, but I guess I only saw that one picture of her… and she was being arrested at the time, so maybe it wasn't a very flattering angle or something."  They both laughed.  In a few minutes, the food on the hearth was hot, and Luke produced a 'spork' from the survival kit multi-tool for them to eat it with.  There were no dishes, so he used one of Lorelai's socks as a makeshift oven mitt, and held the can with it while he spooned rice and beef-a-roni for them both.  They ate the oranges with their fingers, slurping up the juice and enjoying every bite.  

"Thanks for dinner, Chef Boyardee"  she said, as he cleared the cans away.  "Not only does he cook, but he does the dishes too!"

"Yeah, well, it's a service business.  We thank you for your patronage.  I'll put this on your tab back home, don't worry!"  They drank melted snow out of the water bottle from the survival kit, and Lorelai rummaged through its contents until she was absolutely satisfied that there was nothing in the kit that resembled a toothbrush.  Luke offered her a stick of pine needles, and they both laughed.

"Without any coffee, I don't think you need to worry about your breath" Luke joked.  And Lorelai threw her hand across her forehead.

"Don't even JOKE about there not being any coffee, you wicked Yankee!" she cried tragically, a la Scarlett O'Hara.  "Seriously, Luke.  You said that thing was a **survival** kit, didn't you?  There's gotta be coffee in there!"

Luke shook his head.

"And none in the trunk thingy?  Let me look!"  She made a move to get off the bed, but Luke set her firmly back on the mattress.

"Nope.  No coffee.  I would never kid you about thing like that."  He was amused, she could tell. "How about you promise not to whine about it, and I'll promise to give you free coffee for a week when we get back home."

"You give me free coffee all the time anyway!" she countered.

"I do not!  And besides, you have no idea how much secret decaf I've given you over the past few months!!"  he laughed.  He was really going to get it now!

"Oh yeah, like I would believe that!  You don't think I can taste the difference between decaf and regular coffee?  Puh-leeeze.  You could never get that past me!"

"I've been doing it since you got back from Europe – with Rory's cooperation.   My own special recipe, and I fooled the biggest addict in town!  I could make a million on this stuff, I swear."

"You're going to need it."  Lorelai giggled, "To cover your medical bills!  Because when I get over this frostbite, the first thing I'm going to do with my 'gargantuan' foot is plant it right in your a-"

"Now, now, don't blame me!  Ask Rory!  It was all her idea!  She was worried about you getting a stomach ulcer or something without her around to remind you not to O.D. on coffee.  And you've got to admit… if you didn't even notice the switch, why be mad about it now?

Lorelai laughed again.  He was right, of course.  It was Rory that she'd have to take it up with.  She yawned.

"Okay, now you've done it."  Luke said, breaking out in a yawn of his own.  "I guess we're going to have to figure out the sleeping arrangments."

"No problem."  she replied. "Honest, forthright people can sleep in the bed, and all others must sleep on the pull-out bench!"

"Alrighty then, scootch over!"  Luke made for the bed with a big grin.

"Oh ho ho, I don't think so, Mr. Decaf!"  Lorelai put up both hands to repel him.  "That bench has your name all over it!"

"You're kidding, right?"  he lifted an eyebrow.  "This is nothing remotely sexual, Lorelai, but if you don't let me sleep with you in this bunk, I'm tossing you out in the snow!"

"So you're saying that I have no choice?  This bed is hardly big enough for me!  And you snore!"

"Well, let's see…  So far today, I've chopped down an 18-foot tree and loaded it into my truck, for you.  I've practically carried you through the woods to find this cabin, and I've hauled twelve armloads of wood in here from the woodpile.  For you.  I made a fire, massaged your feet, and cooked dinner.  For YOU.  Do you really think I deserve to sleep on the floor?"

She gave in.  "Okay, okay, okay, Matlock.  You've made your case!  Judgment for the plaintiff, we share the stupid bed."

"And I only snore if I sleep on my couch, for the record."

"How would you know?  Am I supposed to take the word of your former girlfriends?"

"No, but how about my nephew?  He hated it when I would fall asleep on the couch reading a book!  I used to do it once in awhile just to bug him – that couch is pretty comfortable."

Luke started to lift one end of the bench to move it out of the way of the bunk, when the seat lifted off to reveal a storage compartment underneath.  Packed in heavy zippered plastic bags, there was a pillow, sheets, and a thick wool blanket!  Luke and Lorelai looked at one another, realizing what they'd stumbled on, and smiles spread across their faces.  

With Lorelai sitting on the edge of the bench, she unpacked each container for Luke as he made up the tiny bunk.  The bedding smelled a little musty from being shut up inside the cedar bench for so long, but it was such an unexpected luxury that neither one of them really even noticed.  The pillowcase wasn't all that clean, but Luke turned it inside out and figured that was just about as good.  On top of the scratchy wool blanket, Luke spread out the old quilt from the back of his truck.  When he finished, they both looked at the bunk in awe.  It was amazing the difference that a few musty bed linens could make!  In a few minutes, the rough-hewn bunk with its sagging old bare mattress had been transformed into something that looked to them like it was ready for the cover of Bed & Breakfast magazine!

Luke looked down at his jeans, and noticed the snow crusted around the hem of both legs from his numerous treks out to the woodpile.  Lorelai noticed too.

"Um, you **are** wearing something underneath those jeans, aren't you?"  she asked.

He took the hint.  He turned his back to her (for privacy, she guessed) and dropped the jeans to reveal his white cotton thermal leggings that were a match for the long-sleeve undershirt he was wearing.  Not that she was looking.  Before she averted her eyes, she noticed the outline of what she was sure must be his flannel boxers underneath his long johns, and she chuckled softly to herself.

"No laughing!"  he warned sternly, hearing her suppressed mirth.  "Or these jeans go back on and I don't give a damn how much snow I get in the bed!"  

Lorelai put on her most serious face, "Sorry.  I was… thinking about something funny."

"Well, quit it.", he grumbled.  He hung the jeans over the bench so that the cuffs could dry out in the warmth of the fire.  Lorelai shifted herself from the bench to the edge of the bed, wincing at the pain that shot through her feet when she stood on them, even briefly.  She handed Luke his flannel shirt.  Now that she had blankets to put her feet under, she wouldn't need to swaddle them in Luke's shirt.   He laid it on the bench beside his jeans and tried hard not to watch as she expertly removed her bra from under her shirt.

"I could never figure out how the hell you girls do that." he remarked conversationally.

"Practice" was her only reply.  She pitched the lacy, underwire garment onto the bench without further explanation.  Let him wonder, she thought.  A girl has to have some mystery.

Although it wasn't discussed, Luke climbed onto the bunk and past Lorelai, taking the side of the bunk that was against the wall.  Either he wanted her to be closer to the warmth of the fire, or he wanted to make sure that she couldn't steal all the blankets.  Maybe a bit of both, for that matter.

Lorelai settled in beside him, trying to give him as much space as possible without tumbling off the edge of the bunk.  It's Luke, for heaven's sake.  Big deal if you touch him.  It's only Luke.  She turned her back to him and settled into position less than an inch away from him.  

Boy, he was warm.  What was it about men that made them so warm in bed?  Like a personal space heater.  Her eyes slid shut.  She was so tired, and this bed was suddenly so comfortable.  As she drifted off, she was vaguely aware of Luke arm around her waist, pulling her against his warm body.  She didn't give it a second thought.  It was Luke.  She laid her arm overtop of his, and laced her fingers in his.  They fell asleep.


	5. Dream a Little Dream of Me

Whoopsy, forgot the disclaimer-thingy at the top of the last chapter.  Ahem.  Here goes:  To all you big corporate lawyer types out there, I am not the owner of these characters.  Blame me for the plot holes, the infrequent updates, and the wonky formatting that leaves a mile of empty space in between paragraphs for no apparent reason (I seriously don't know what's causing this, so fill me in if you know), but I cannot take credit for the Gilmore Girls.  The show and all of its kith and kin belong to Amy Sherman-Paladino and probably hoards of other talented people whose names I don't know.  Regards.

And now… for the conclusion that you've all been waiting for…and waiting for…. and waiting for…

When Luke opened his eyes, he couldn't see anything at all.  During the wee hours, the fire had died down to dark ash and the lamp had burned out.  Truth be told, he completely forgot where he was.  It was normal for him to wake up each day at 5:30am, in the dark, about five minutes before his alarm went off.  Luke was a vivid dreamer, and he often spent those few fuzzy minutes trying to remember what he'd been dreaming about, and making up theories about what his dreams might mean.  Like the time that he'd dreamed about trying to build Lorelai's wedding chuppah, and the nails were all melty and stuck together like gummy bears that had been left out in the sun.  Or the time that he'd dreamt that Jess was really his father in disguise, come back from the grave to taunt him and make him question all of his choices in life.  And then there was his recurring favorite – a fishing dream.  Except that he wasn't trying to catch just any fish, he was trying to catch two dazzlingly beautiful exotic fish – one older and one younger – who seemed to know everything he was thinking before he thought it.  He would stand in the stream all day in his dream, wearing an apron and baiting his lures with coffee grounds, and the beautiful fish would swim all around him but cleverly avoid being caught.  As frustrated as he was, he admired those fish for their beauty and intelligence.  He wondered if he would regret catching them, but he never seemed to stop trying.

This morning, Luke thought about whose day it was to open the diner, and decided that he'd go downstairs around 7am and help Caesar with the breakfast crowd.  Everyone thought he was nuts when he came in early on days when he wasn't expected in until 9 or 11 o'clock, but nobody complained about the extra pair of hands.  It was his diner, he thought.  His father had always told him that that was one of the great luxuries of being self-employed: you set your own hours and keep them only when it suits you.  He wondered what his dad would think of the diner if he could see it today.  Chances are, he'd be proud as hell.

Luke smiled to himself and repositioned his head on the pillow.  He breathed in the sweet smell of Lorelai's hair and exhaled with a sigh.  Absently, he nuzzled the nape of her neck as he thought about what the breakfast special should be this morning.  

Suddenly, he froze.  His eyes snapped wide open and he held his breath.  All at once, he'd come to the crashing realization that he was NOT in his bed.  And he was NOT ALONE.  Lorelai was asleep beside him – so close beside him, in fact, that there were barely any parts of his body that weren't in direct contact with hers.  He was mortified about the nuzzling thing.  Had she felt that, or was she totally asleep?  His brow was furrowed with worry that she might be lying there wondering what the heck he was trying to do.  He didn't move a muscle, waiting to see if she was going to haul off and smack him, asleep or no.

Several seconds had passed.  Then a minute.  There was no clock in the cabin, and Luke didn't dare look at his watch, but he was sure that it had been at least three or four minutes since the nuzzling incident, and Lorelai appeared to be completely unaware of his advances.  He started to relax.  She was out like a light.  Come on, this is Lorelai!  She could sleep through a train wreck, she certainly wasn't going to wake up from a little innocent – and, he added mentally, completely unintentional – nuzzling.  Besides, nuzzling is sort of… affectionate, right?  People nuzzle babies and cute, fluffy pets.  Friends are affectionate sometimes, aren't they?  Nothing inappropriate about nuzzling.

He laid his head back down on the pillow beside hers, being careful not to lie on her hair.  That was what had caused this whole problem in the first place!  One near-escape per night was more than enough for him.  He started to drowse a little.  No sense in getting out of bed before dawn, he definitely wouldn't be helping Caesar out this morning regardless of how early he got up.  He wished he could move away from Lorelai a little, to make sure that he wouldn't accidentally… uh, touch something, but she was crammed right up against him in the tiny bed and his back was almost against the wall of the cabin as it was.  Cozy, he thought.  At least being so close together had made it nice and warm under the blankets.  Luke wasn't relishing the idea of getting out of bed into the frosty air of the cabin.  Maybe just another hour…

Lorelai wasn't much of a dreamer.  Nine nights out of ten, she'd roll groggily out of bed in the morning after fifteen minutes of 'snoozing' her alarm clock, with absolutely no recollection of any dream she might've had during the night.  Rory was always telling her that dreaming is automatic – everyone does it every night of their lives, but Lorelai had to accept the fact that the majority of those nightly dreams would never make their way into her conscious brain.  Oh, there were exceptions, of course.  The strange twin dream was a marvelous example.  Dreams like that were enough to convince Lorelai that she probably didn't want to know what she was dreaming about every night!   When Rory had first moved away to college, Lorelai had suffered for weeks with outlandish nightmares about everything from freak earthquakes to campus axe murderers to Rory having the wrong kind of trashcan for her dorm room and being rejected by all the other kids.   

She knew the nightmares were ridiculous – at least as ridiculous as the twin dream, possibly even more – but it didn't make them stop.  Sometime in the fall, she'd just stopped having them (or stopped remembering that she was having them, same difference), and she couldn't remember a single dream she'd had since then.  Oh, except for that crazy dream that she was always having about the tree house, but she'd been having that one for years.  It wasn't a nightmare, but it was still pretty odd.  In the dream, she was always admiring this beautiful tree house, but she couldn't get close enough to it to see inside.  When she stood back and looked at it, the windows were warm and inviting and the most delicious smells of coffee and baked goods were always drifting down to tempt her.  All she wanted to do was to climb up to the house, find out who really lived there, and maybe stay awhile if it was nice.  But there was no way up.  She'd had the dream a hundred times, but she could never find the way up to that stupid little house!  Frustrating dream.  Always made her wake up craving coffee and cinnamon rolls.  Not that that was a bad thing, in Lorelai's book.

Tonight was one of the dreamless nights for Lorelai.  She was warm, comfortable, and for some reason she was sleeping more soundly than she had since Rory had moved away.  Deep down, she felt a familiar kind of home-sweet-home sensation that she'd always had when she knew that Rory was sleeping soundly in the bedroom below her own.  She didn't know or care what was bringing that sensation back when Rory was over an hour away, sleeping in a dorm room at Yale.  Lorelai had missed that feeling.  She didn't want to think too hard about it because she was afraid that she'd scare it off and it wouldn't come back.  Warm, soft, nuzzling at the back of her neck.  Mmmmm.  If this was a dream, she was going to make damn sure that she didn't hear her alarm this morning.  Michel was a capable guy, as obnoxious as he was.  No need to go wrecking a perfectly good dream when there was an odious Frenchman on hand to staff the front desk at the inn until … oh, at least 9am.  She snuggled into the warm covers. Maybe even 10am, she thought.

After finally recovering his composure after the "nuzzling incident" (as he'd come to think of it), Luke had dozed off again.  Confident that his lapse of propriety had gone unnoticed, he'd given up on the idea of getting up early for work and drifted back off to sleep.  True to his word, he didn't snore even a little, in spite of the musty bedding and close quarters.  The two of them slumbered peacefully on, as the sky outside changed gradually from black to iron gray.  The snow had finally stopped and the tiny cabin sat snugly under its thick mantle of white.

At some point later, in the dim gray light of the dawn, Luke stirred in his sleep.  Almost simultaneously, as if his presence had reminded her sleeping body that it needed to move too, Lorelai stretched languidly in the tiny bed.  She arched her back and sighed, unaware that she was pressing herself back against the only part of Luke that was actually awake at this hour of the day.  Like any healthy male, that part of Luke didn't need a lot of enticement to get its attention.  And Luke was a very healthy guy.  

"Mmmmmmm" Lorelai exhaled in her sleep.  The home-sweet-home sensation wasn't gone, but it was being overshadowed by another sensation that she liked just as much.  And that sensation was trailing sparks through her entire body, igniting a reaction that she hadn't felt in a very long time.  Too long.  This dream was getting better by the minute, and she couldn't imagine how it would do any harm to indulge herself a little.  She drew her hand up against her bare belly, underneath her sweater.  Mmmmmmmm, that was nice.  Her breathing was a little deeper, her cheeks slightly flushed.

Luke's imagination was having a hayday with him, but he really didn't mind.  He pressed tentatively back against the form that had brushed against him so teasingly just a moment ago.  He renewed the contact, causing his blood to rush urgently through his body.  From far away, he heard a woman sigh and he pressed more firmly.  He smelled her hair, her flushed skin so close to his own.  She drew his hand smoothly under her soft cashmere top, and he moaned inwardly when he felt the heat of her soft skin under his fingers.  She pressed back against him again, and he brought his lips to the suppleness of her neck.

The kisses behind her ear, along her hairline, and down the side of her neck were almost too real.  The dream seemed to fade away moment by moment, but the sensations didn't seem to be going with it.   Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she couldn't think about anything except the soft, teasing kisses on her skin.  In one fluid motion, she eased herself onto her back and met those kisses in the way that they were undeniably asking her to.  The hand on her belly wasn't her own after all, because her hands were both somehow in his hair as their kisses grew deeper.  The dream was gone.  She was awake, and she was kissing Luke. Kissing him because they were in bed together. Of course, how obvious.  With her body pressed firmly against his, and their kisses flowing seamlessly together into one long, passionate expression of their mutual desire, she was amazed to find that she wasn't the least bit surprised.

There was no way for Luke to deny the real-life presence of the dream woman any longer.  Even in his sleep, he'd known exactly who could elicit this kind of response from him.  He didn't need to be conscious to feel the familiar rush he had when he was close to her, when he touched her.  But he staunchly refused to let reality interfere with what was easily the most vivid fantasy he'd ever had.  There was no way that this could be real – the way that she responded so eagerly in his arms, the way that their bodies fit so perfectly together.  Surely it wasn't possible that he was stroking her bare skin under her shirt.  That could never happen in reality.  He kissed her neck, to be sure that she wasn't real, but once he started, he couldn't bring himself to stop.  She lifted her chin, offering him the length of her velvety neck and he lost all ability to think.  He was drowning in pleasure, and didn't care if he ever came up for air again.  When she brought her lips softly to his, and kissed him with all the intensity that he'd seen in her from the first day that they met, he was completely undone.  Fantasy, reality… who said there had to be any distinction between those two things?  As impossible as it was, he was awake.  And he was kissing Lorelai.

At long last, the kisses ended and they gazed at one another for a long minute without saying a word.  Sleepy smiles adorned both of their faces.  Neither one made a move to get out of bed, or even untangle themselves from their intimate embrace.

"It's you." whispered Lorelai.

"Yeah, me." he replied with a smile.  

She arched a concerned eyebrow.  "Is this…" she paused, "Okay?"  

He looked at her eyes.  Her mouth.  The curve of her cheekbone.  He closed his eyes and gently shook his head.

"No" he said softly.  "This is so much better than okay that they don't even have a word for it."  

She reached up to his face, brushing her thumb briefly across the fullness of his lower lip.  Words?  Who needed words?

The End.

Yeah, okay, so they're still in a cabin in the middle of nowhere!  But you're saying that like it's a **bad** thing!  What if they LIKE it in the cabin?  Huh?  What if they wait until spring to go back to Stars Hollow?  What if nobody even cares about the stupid Christmas tree for the inn??  What if it took me so long to finish this poor story that I completely abandoned the Christmas theme because it just doesn't seem seasonal anymore?  Hee hee.  Don't like it?  Flame me in the reviews!  I can take it J

You guys have been great!  Thanks for suspending your disbelief long enough for me to get these two characters together (in bed, but not in an NC-17 kind of way, hopefully).  Thanks for hanging in there through the loooooong wait for updates.  I think I'm sort of getting the hang of this fanfic thing, and I might try it again soon!


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